There has been much debate as to
what to call Iran in common usage of the English
language. The two possible names are
"Iran" and
"Persia"; their adjectives being "Iranian"
and "Persian", respectively.

Serious argument on this matter
began in the 1980s, when Professor Ehsan Yarshater (Editor of the Encyclopedia
Iranica) started to write several articles on this matter (in both English and
Persian) in Rahavard Quarterly, Pars Monthly, Iranian Studies Journal, etc.
After him, a few Persian scholars and researchers such as Kazem Abhary
(Professor at the SouthAustralianUniversity) followed the issue. Several times
since then, Persian magazines and websites have published articles from those
who agree or disagree with usage of 'Persia' and 'Persian' in
English.

Map of the Persian Empire 450
BCE

In view of many of these articles,
it seems that the subject has not been explained sufficiently. Some think the
name Persia belongs to antiquity, and ought not
to be used now. Others believe that "Persia" includes only one province within
Iran, and should not be used for the
whole country. There are also many Persians and non-Persians in the West who
prefer "Persia" and "Persian" as the English names for the country and
nationality, similar to the usage of "La Perse/Persane" in French, and
"Persien/Perser/Persisch" in the German language.

Most countries and languages have
different names in other languages. For example, Germans call their language
"Deutsch"; in English people say "German", and Persian-speaking people say
"Almaani" (The Persian word Almaani comes from the French word "L'Allemagne").
People of Greece,
Finland,
India and
Japan call their countries
Hellas, Suomi, Bharat and
Nippon in their respective languages.
Similarly, the native name of "Persia" is
Iran.

Since 600 BC, Greeks used the name
"Persis" for Persia /
Iran. Persis was taken from "Pars" (the
name of the region where the Persian rulers lived). Persian people likewise used
the name of "Younaan" (instead of internal term of "Hellas") for
Greece. "Younan" in fact is taken from the
name of "Lonia", in the south-east of
Greece. "Persis" since then has been used
as the name of Iran in all European documents, maps,
etc. Only in later centuries did some Europeans (in view of their languages)
changed it to "Persia" (English, Italian and Spanish),
"La Perse" (French), "Persien" (German), etc. The name
"Persia" until 1935 was the official name
of Iran in the world, but Persian people
inside their country since the Sassanian period have called it
"Iran" meaning "the
land of Aryans". They also used "Parsa" in the
Achaemenids period.

In 1935, Reza Shah announced that
all Western countries should use the name of
"Iran" in their languages too. This act
brought cultural damage to the country and separated
Iran from its past in the West. Also,
many people confused it with Iraq (an Arab state West of
Iran). For many westerners,
"Persia" became a dead empire that does not
exist anymore.

After some Persian scholars
protested this announcement, in 1959 Prof. Ehsan Yarshater made a committee to
research this matter. The committee announced that "changing the name has not
been right", so Mohammad Reza Shah announced that both
'Persia' and
'Iran' can be used
interchangeably.